The Story: Rotisserie anything is a treat. Rotisserie chicken, slowly cooking and juicing up is crazy good. Polli-Tico opened this past month offering up Peruvian style rotisserie chicken from a food cart in downtown Portland.

Polli-Tico specializes in “pollos a la brasa,” otherwise known as charbroiled chicken. A traditional Peruvian dish of slow cooked whole chickens served with sides. The owners, two Costa Rican brothers that grew up eating Peruvian chicken in Washignton DC decided Portland was missing out on this unique dish. They even imported a rotisserie from Peru for the authenticity. They documented their challenges with customs and sourcing on their site – a good read and I’m thankful for the effort. On any given day, they do up 4-6 chickens and split them out for dishes as quarters or halves. The oven can handle up to 30, so I’m excited to see what summer brings.

Half Chicken Platter from Polli-Tico

While the charcoal rotisserie is truly the star of the show here, the fresh hormone and preservative free chicken can’t be overlooked. Having only enjoyed rotisserie chicken during my travels in both Germany and Mexico, I wanted to get the full meal deal, so ordered a half chicken with sides. Yup! A half chicken. I think I surprised them with the order by taking almost 20% of the chicken for the day, but I had research to do. A GO Box full of chicken with fried Yuca, a separate container held black beans and rice. I hesitated a bit with the first bite, but eventually threw caution to the wind and picked up a quarter and chomped down. Succulent, salty, fatty, but neither flavor or texture overwhelming the rest. Everyone is into chicken wings these days. I think rotisserie chicken is going to take the city by storm once people discover how juicy and flavorful it is. Also, 1/2 a chicken is a ton of food for $11. Brilliant.

Polli-Tico is exactly why I love street food. Something new. Something unique we havn’t tried before. And at the right price. Open daily for lunch and into the dinner hour, but they are still working out how many chickens to roast, so they may sell out early. Follow them on Twitter and Facebook for updates. Let them know Food Carts Portland sent ya.